farla | Science Stagnates

Today I went to the museum.

I'm in favor of random facts and information, as well as pretty displays, so I thought it'd be fun.

And I know I'm probably picky, but...

Well, we went with my aunt, who's that happy smiley literal kind of religious, making it really surreal. I'm not entirely sure on her stance on extinction, but she doesn't believe in evolution and she was mentioning hearing that there were still dinosaurs alive somewhere in South America, so... It made it more than a bit weird to be going to see dinosaurs and extinct whatevers and talk about how they were adapted to their environments and why they died out.

Then there were all the 'well, duh' exhibits, cataloging what I consider basic knowledge. Some of them are for kids, which is okay until you realize their parents are watching with confused expressions and you suddenly realize that these people vote.

Of the exhibits I knew anything about, I kept picking out errors. Whether it was the simple grammatical mistake on the plaque's title or the fact that the dinosaur models were a solid fifty years out of date, it added up. (The models in question weren't even that big, and it's not like it would have killed anyone to put a little sign saying 'This is how scientists USED to think dinosaurs looked, note X, Y, and Z which we now know are actually...) Some of the modern exhibits were maybe five years out of date, and somewhat incomplete at that. So it wound up being a lesson in scientific orthodoxy and refusal to update.

What's the point, if people don't know, don't believe, and aren't even being taught accurately?

Current Mood: defeatist

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

farla.livejournal.com

It's hard to say. Every topic I knew well enough to find errors in it had some, which made me suspicious of all the other exhibits. The ones involving physics were presumably accurate, at least the mechanical portion, but although I don't know much on the subject, I do know that 'lay' physics and actual physics have some major deviations in their explanations of why the mechanics work, and the explanations struck me as more geared to the lay side of things.

And the gift shop was more aimed toward kids and shiny stuff, not books. I did skim the few books, but it was just info for kids or else random intellectual books that didn't have any direct relation to exhibits.

(And hello again. Any reason you don't sign in?)

From: (Anonymous)

Lay physics usually seems to be just what you learn first. (While some people at school did get a bit annoyed at how, each year, we were told "An electron's not actually like that, it's like this", I thought the information was taught in a fairly sensible order.) How big/major was that museum? Was it just a little local one, or a fairly posh one? Most of the exhibits at the museum my mum used to work at weren't ever changed or updated, but it was about local history, not science, and even so there were a few rooms used for changing, three- or four-week long exhibits. Didn't any of the displays at least look recent, if not accurate?

How large was the gift shop? The best museums that I've seen have bookshop separate from the main gift shop, but those were in London, and museums outside capital cities aren't ever as good.

(Signing in... Links to pages of links to pages of links to pages of... The infinite abyss... i_i Isn't life complicated enough already?)

From:

farla.livejournal.com

Although I understand that style of teaching, the problem is that not everyone, or even most people, make it to the final 'and this is what it actually, actually is' point. When out of school adults are about three steps away from actual fact, there are problems. How many people, for example, know that light does not actually slow down as it travels? Simplifying things for second graders is one thing, but there's a point where the misinformation takes on a life of its own.

And this was a large museum, with a very large gift shop, but it was filled with toys and things. And the exhibits weren't that old either.

(What particularly perplexes me is you seem to sign in and post, then delete your signed-in post.)

From: (Anonymous)

Eeee. I don't think I could get any more of an idea of what that museum's like now unless I actually went there. (I wish I could see for myself. It... does sound like such a disturbing museum.) Thanks for describing it.

The speed of light? Well, it's learned as a constant, and even if refraction talks about light being slower in different materials before school leaving age, it's still in terms of different constants - it sounds like you mean light just slowing down the same way that objects slow down 'cause of friction, but why would anyone who'd been to school until 16 or 18 think that?

What style of teaching do you think would be better, anyway? Whatever age students are taught each stage at, dot and cross diagrams would still come before orbitals and wave functions... Assuming teachers always cover the curriculum at a decent pace (even if that may not always be true), how could students be taught everything up to degree-level before leaving school, aside from if the school day was made a few hours longer and Saturday mornings were used too (which seems more about how long people spend in school than the style of teaching)?

[I only have one LJ account, so it should be simpler to remember to post under the right settings than to log in and out all the time... I guess I'm a bit clumsy. Still, do you really mind me not linking to that account (which has a separate use) with each post, when I just want to talk? Why does it matter when you know my IP address?]

From:

farla.livejournal.com

No, I mean red-shifting, which is often referred to as slowing down over a distance, when it's actually a matter of light being stretched. And it usually does come off as friction. Sort of like 'well, there's virtually no friction, but over time...' kind of thing. I don't know if it's explicitly stated, but that's the general sense.

I agree with the idea of teaching simplified versions, but oftentimes I find that the simplified versions are actually inaccurate (presumably, it's intended it'll be corrected later), and that the various simplified versions last until near the end of school, meaning the majority of students will wind up missing the last step. (The issue is worsened by the fact that teachers don't know what the teacher last year taught, so they won't know what needs correcting, or how, and most of these flawed concepts are ones that aren't immediately obvious.)
Basically, the difference between 'atoms are the smallest unit of anything ever' and 'atoms are the smallest building/semi-indestructible/whatever unit'.

I don't think more school is the answer - I spent most of the last...five or so years of school writing in my notebook. What's needed are decent teachers and less time wasted. And kicking gym out of the curriculum.

And it doesn't really matter if you sign in, although as I don't memorize your IP address, it's nice if you sign your name the first time you pop in. I just thought it was weird to be getting signed and unsigned posts at the same time in my inbox, and wondered what was up with it.

From: (Anonymous)

Red-shifting? Well, it was a while ago, but I do remember that it was taught to us fairly explicitly in terms of wavelengths - there were little diagrams of wavelengths to the left of the objects emitting them being stretched as the objects moved to the right, and wavelengths on the right getting squashed, and it was said that we see redshifting rather than blueshifting in astronomy because of the universe expanding... How could that come across as friction when friction doesn't slow things down in one direction and speed them up the other way? I've never heard redshifting referred to as slowing down - doesn't it just affect wavelength and frequency? Where does speed come into it? I'm afraid you've confused me there. Um... it's possible I'm remembering something wrong. It was in the gcse science curriculum, either way. (So it was before school leaving age over here, too.)

Teachers may not know exactly what the last year's teacher taught, but they'll have taught the same curriculum whenever they taught classes in the same year group, so... the only problems were generally when one or two topics weren't given enough time, and the teacher had to spend a little while recapping them before going onto the topics they lead onto. There were occasionally students who transferred from a school with a different curriculum, who actually hadn't seen some topics before, but as far as I could tell, those individuals caught up. 'the various simplified versions last until near the end of school, meaning the majority of students will wind up missing the last step' - Why would the majority of students miss the things that are actually taught in school? And the last step is at university / at the peak of a profession, isn't it? And atoms (protons, neutrons, isotopes, basic radioactivity etc) fall well within the gcse curriculum (well before school leaving age), so is that point an analogy or are you literally saying that people leave school thinking 'atoms are the smallest unit of anything ever' in your... uh, in your state? I'm sorry if I'm losing track of this... (Uh, if it's of any use or interest as far as context goes, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/) sort of summarises what we were taught in Science, English, Religious Education etc, though we didn't really seem to follow much of a curriculum for Music or Gym or anything like that.)

The 'more school' thing? You would need... any time spent in school to be useful before more would be useful, sure. I was sort of saying that with the difference in school hours on the continent in mind. Well, France, at least - I'm not sure what the hours are like anywhere else. As far as I understand it, the difference seems to set French kids ahead of us English kids in some ways. I'm not sure about kicking gym out of the curriculum, though; it could break up the day pretty well, it was the only way I ever learnt anything about several sports (though I can't entirely say I learnt to play them), and excercise is a life skill that I'd place as high as Food Tech (uh... Home Economics?).

(I wouldn't have expected you to recognise IP addresses - I think you confused me by seeming to. Signing is fiddly... but sensible, I suppose. The relevant ones are Rozzlynn/Kiiii (I forget how many i's in that one); I'll try and remember to use one.)

From:

farla.livejournal.com

Then you had better textbooks than we did - we learned how light, going over longer and longer distances, would 'redshift' as the wavelength changed (as in, greater time between peaks /\/\/\/\ to /-\_/-\_/-\ which was caused by the distance it traveled, which was then described as 'going slower' because it would take longer between peaks.) It could be that other areas just aren't as idiotic as America, which is certainly held up by our rankings.

"Why would the majority of students miss the things that are actually taught in school?"
The subtle magic of 'tracking' based on ability. Oftentimes the final explanation is only in the highest level course, which works fine unless the majority of students never get that far. My first high school had this cute little system where the course subjects were part of the tracking system, so honors students took Biology as freshmen, regular students took it as sophomores, and 'special' kids took it as juniors. Only the honors kids even could make it to physics, and even then, the school only required three years of science and accepted electives for credit. And this is assuming that they were paying attention at the point it was explained, which people often weren't, and that the teachers actually know the final answer, which, disturbingly enough, they sometimes don't.

College just worsens things, because people are even more likely to concentrate on their particular interest. The minimum requirements are pathetic.

::shrugs:: In theory, more time in school would help, but basically, if we're already tuning out most of class, it'd be easier to address that.

Gym doesn't teach exercise so much as force it. Let's just say that it's ridiculously expensive and that if they really cared about our health, they wouldn't have had a wall of vending machines and a small store selling cookies and junk food on the way in and out.

From: (Anonymous)

"tracking system" "Only the honors kids even could make it to physics"

But that's crazy. (!?!!?) Uh... not that I don't believe you, of course. I just... would never have expected to hear something like that.

Oh well.

By 'wall of vending machines', do you mean an actual wall full of them - more than two or three near each other? And by 'on the way in and out' do you mean you actually have to walk through it to get to class? (I know those must sound like stupid questions, I just... uh, don't know that that's impossible, I guess.) Ki

From:

farla.livejournal.com

Most of the kids didn't even make it near physics. If you were in the lower levels, you wouldn't take biology, chemistry or physics at all. Between that, electives, and how minimal the courses themselves are, graduating without learning basic information in a subject was pretty easy. Do you know we teach students that on Thanksgiving, our forefathers gave the Indians new foods...like pumpkins and squash and corn and potatoes, all native to the Americas.

Well, the main vending machine wall was in the cafeteria. The one by the gym was on a wall with huge doors, so while they covered all available space, there was only room for about five or so.

And yes, we walked by to get to class. See, the way to the two different gym areas was through this open room/hallway. We often hung out there for ten minutes while our teacher got there to let us in. And after class had concluded, but before the bell rang.

Did I mention that we graduated several months early, as far as I can tell because it was just cheaper to kick us out? Oh, and the textbooks were garbage, our teachers weren't necessarily accredited, we had not-quite-half-day days, again as far as I can tell because it was cheaper than having whole school days, and they were running the buses as a for-profit part of the school administration? Oh, and school supplies were often purchased by our teachers, as an out-of-pocket expense.

There is a reason America is so very very low on international rankings.